MEDIA -- One local family is working on a project that could save the lives of thousands of infants a year.

Dr. Harel Rosen of Riddle Hospital, and his parents, Arye and Daniella Rosen of Advanced Medical Technology Inc., have received one of 65 grants issued by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for an LED blue-light blanket to treat neonatal jaundice.

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Eventually, Dr. Rosen hopes the blanket will be used in Africa, where jaundice is deadly.

"The idea that light helps jaundice is not a new one," Rosen said. "Decades ago, it was noticed that babies in nurseries that were near the windows were less jaundiced. That led to research that showed that it was actually blue light that was effective."

Rosen, in conjunction with his parents, came up with the idea of implementing a flexible bank of blue-light-emitting diodes (LEDs) in the treatment of jaundiced children. With their blanket, babies can be covered completely by the lights, potentially healing them faster than current forms of light treatment, or "phototherapy."

A Deadly Condition

Infants in the womb rely on a high number of red blood cells from their mother to get oxygen. When red blood cells are broken down, a fat-soluble waste molecule called bilirubin is produced. The bilirubin is normally processed in the liver into a water-soluble molecule that can be excreted. Jaundice results if a baby cannot process the bilirubin quickly enough for excretion. Thus, bilirubin stays in the baby's system.

Excess bilirubin attaches itself to fatty tissues, like skin and the brain. Bilirubin on the skin gives babies the yellowish hue characteristic of jaundice. Jaundice turns deadly as kernicterus when bilirubin attaches to the brain, where it kills brain cells and, if not fatal, can cause cerebral palsy or other mental deficiencies.

In many cases, a contributing factor to high bilirubin levels, especially in places like Africa, is a deficiency in glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase. G-6-PD protects red blood cells from breaking down. With a deficiency in them, more red blood cells are broken down and excess bilirubin enters the system.

Certain medicines and diets particular to Africans create G-6-PD deficiencies and other risk factors for an increased threat of jaundice.

"It's a population that is predisposed to jaundice and has no way to treat it," said Rosen.

Jaundice is easy to treat in the United States, where phototherapy is readily available, eliminating the chances of developing kernicterus.

But D.W. McCandless, a professor at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in Chicago, who wrote a book on kernicterus, estimated that the number of newborns dying each year of kernicterus in places like Nigeria or Zimbabwe "must be in the thousands."

The Birth of an Idea

The idea for the LED blanket started with Daniella Rosen's visit to her son's workplace, Riddle's neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

"Our son was showing me the NICU and I noticed a baby naked with his eyes covered under a bank of blue lights. I asked my son why the baby was like that," said Daniella. "They needed to treat as much of the surface of the skin as possible. But his mom could not pick him up or hold him, and that bothers me very much."

It bothered Daniella so much, she came up with an idea.

"Since my husband was an expert in lasers, I asked if this could be treated with lasers," she said. "(If so), then I could sew those lasers into a blanket or jumpsuit."

At the time, however, lasers were exclusively red. Eventually, a Japanese company developed blue LEDs.

"The project sat pretty still until the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation started funding scientific research projects to benefit health care on a global scale," said Rosen. "And here is where our phototherapy system had an advantage. Because it uses LEDs it can use relatively low power and the initial idea was to use a battery system."

"My husband had the thought of combining that therapy with solar energy" to power the batteries, Daniella said.

"We tried to put our heads together at the dinner table and said, 'Look they have this project, what do we have that would fit?'" Rosen said, smiling.

Selection

and the Future

In May 2010, the Rosens submitted their idea to the Gates' foundation. Six months later, they found out that their idea had been accepted and received a $100,000 grant.

Since then, Dr. Rosen and his father have developed a "blanket" of blue LED lights powered by batteries charged by solar panels. The panels fold easily into a square the size of an iPad. Additionally, the LED lights last for a long time and wouldn't need to be replaced often.

This creates the perfect system for Africa, Rosen said. Because power is hard to come by in many areas and those with power are faced with brown-outs, the easily transportable and cheap solar-powered blanket could be very effective.

"It's a simple solution to a big problem, which was probably part of the appeal to the Gateses," said Rosen.

All development and research has been conducted at Riddle Hospital.

Rosen believes that the LEDs, which shine at a higher intensity than lights regularly used in phototherapy, could treat jaundice more quickly.

The Rosens hope that the Gates Foundation continues funding their product after another presentation in November. With several prototypes already constructed, Rosen believes that testing on babies can proceed as early as the end of 2012.